Took a ride into the country last evening. It was a trip into my past as I drove a road I had lived on for some time. I saw family farms that have existed for several generations and a corporate farm or two that have sprung up over the years. Miles and miles of grass, trees, wild flowers, and crops not yet paved over in the name of progress... everything so green and washed clean from rainstorms the past week. We've had a warm winter here and I wonder if Summer will bring us lingering heat to sere the green to brittle tan and brown.
On this day in 1893, Lizzie Bordon was found 'not guilty' of the ax murders of her father and stepmother. She claimed her innocence throughout the trial, which was covered extensively by the fascinated media of the day. She lived a quite life afterward; never, to any one's knowledge admitting to anything else. Growing up, I jumped rope to a jingle that arose during that trial and it survives to this day:
"Lizzie Bordon took an ax...
Gave her father forty whacks...
When she saw what she had done...
Gave her mother forty-one"
Author Walter Satterthwait wrote a fictional mystery, Miss Lizzie, that tells the story of a young girl whose life intersects with Miss Bordon years after the trial. I've read the book and have listened to the audio version several times. The book evokes an era before DNA testing and other forensics had been dreamed of, much less developed. I've often wondered if the verdict would have been the same had that science been available. Somehow....
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